(Chapter 3: https://saragawde.com/chapter-3/)
Asher
In an hour, they’d called animal control. “This shouldn’t even be possible, bears are basically extinct in English forests.” Liam said. Avery looked at him like he was stupid, but Liam kept on with his confused blabber. “Why is this happening?” He put his hands on his head as he paced the forest floor. Asher looked down at the bear prints again.
Could it really be possible that a bear killed Rebecca?
“Let’s search the fence for holes.” He declared.
“Holes?” Avery said in surprise. Her eyes screaming like those of a fiery journalist. “I mean, do you really think a bear got into the lakehouse the night Rebecca died?”
“I refuse to think such a thing until we’ve discovered holes, in the fence.”
Avery nodded after a moment of thought.
The three of them went around Rebecca’s house, reviewing the base of the 20 foot fence that almost peaked to her rooftop. Asher overviewed every part of the fence, but it was complete in every way. Liam looked breathless as he frantically searched. Asher pat him on the back. “Calm down.”
“It doesn’t add up.” Liam shook his head, turning to him. “This was supposed to just be a precautionary check in on the lead-“
“We’ll figure it out.” He didn’t know if he was referring to Rebecca’s death or the bear’s possible presence. Avery stood by the fence door, staring at it in deep contemplation. Liam walked to her, watching the door as she did. He looked up at it, his face taking on the same focus as hers had. “Asher.” He called him, “What if the bear got in through the door?”
“What if she left the door open that night mistakenly?” Liam guessed.
Avery looked at him, searching him for a reaction, but he didn’t display one. “It’s possible.” Asher could feel the gears in his mind turning, ideas building up, possibilities.
Avery took out her notepad, quickly jotting down things in messy letters. “You said they found the body with a trail of blood, by a large boulder. Is it possible Rebecca climbed onto the shore, and succumbed to her injuries while leaning onto the rock?”
Asher wished she’d shut up. His mind was full of noises now, a whirring storm. If a bear got in, and chased her up the stairs, did she end up shooting it? But, there was no blood on the rooftop. She had ended up dropping her gun into the pool, that was clear, maybe out of terror. She may have fallen off of the rooftop after, crashed into the hard bedrock and almost bled to death, and like Avery said, succumbed to her injuries by the nearby rock a few metres from the lake’s lining, only to be spotted the next morning far away by a woman who had come by the lake, but then why had the bear not eaten her? Or taken anything else from the house, the fridge was still stocked with meat, wasn’t it?
Asher ran into the house, slamming open every cabinet. His eyes searching the house for any sign of damage, but everything was spotless. The cabinets were full of dishes and the fridge was untouched and with an array of eggs. There was still meat in the freezer. There were large dead fish floating in the fish tank too.
The stairs were not broken or damaged in any way. He stormed up them and burst through the terrace door, taking the few stairs that lead up to the pool at the centre, where the gun had been found. He walked towards the edge of the terrace, standing by the railing which narrowly edged over a wall keeping the lakehouse from the lake. On the other side of that wall was the lake itself. If Rebecca had fallen off of here, she would’ve landed in the lake, it was obvious. But a new question sprang in his mind, why build a wall basically touching the upper storey of the building while also keeping you from the view? He’d look into that later.
Asher turned around to see Liam and Avery standing on the terrace with him, by the door. “Liam! Get me a measuring tape! Rebecca had one near her TV set if I remember!” He turned back to the railing as a breeze ruffled his hair. He breathed it in, and his limbs went limp. He heard footsteps behind him, and something foreign touched his back, making him flinch. He turned to see a subdued Avery standing next to him.
“Is it possible? Is it really possible she jumped, or got scared and stumbled off of the roof?” She asked curiously. Asher gulped, ignoring her as he looked down at the lake again. It ended at a far yet seen distance at his left, but he couldn’t tell where it finished right. “She died in her own lake. Quite tragic.” He crossed his arms behind his back. “But it makes for a good story, doesn’t it?” He turned to Avery who only nodded in return.
The lining of the terrace contained wooden carts, from a shipping company: ‘Orangutan delivery’ Asher read. Orangutan delivery delivered essentials by helicopter for those who lived in isolation. The carts were stocked in random places on the terrace, besides already filling the perimeter. The wood of the carts was a varying shade, and most probably a different year than others. Asher noticed the pool side table, next to 2 white loungers and an umbrella extended over one of the loungers. Liam emerged from the door, breathless with a measuring tape, he threw it at Asher and he caught it, extending it as he bent down, moving some crates to extend it up the height of the wall. 4.3 feet.
Asher sighed. “There is no way a 9 foot bear went unnoticed here.” He looked back at the spot where he’d met his anonymous interviewee, it wasn’t exactly in sighting range of the lakehouse, but taking the area back a few metres, he realized why it might’ve been a bit hard to see what had happened to Rebecca, but a humongous grizzly bear, just, not being seen? Ludicrous.
The lakewater rippled, and Asher saw two boats drifting towards the lakehouse. Men and women in khaki uniforms inside them. Animal control.
The three of them went downstairs, waiting at the shore to receive the two boats. Avery got out her notepad again, she was too far for him to be able to make out what she was writing.
A man from the first boat waved at him. He had a shiny head and a brown beard, and was wearing khaki shorts and a shirt of the same color, a red cloth tied around his neck. Asher and Liam helped them out of the boat, Avery had all but disappeared.
“Mr. Aonzo?” Asher asked, extending his hand to the bald man who shook it in return with a smile. “Can I see those bear prints now, Mr Jackson?”
Asher lead the group to the bear prints, still deeply engraved into the ground. Aonzo bent down, running his hands in the crevices of the prints. “Beautiful. Sure as hell are bear prints too.” He said.
“I’d like a comparison of size, between the bear and the door frame of the fence, and the windows. Can you do that?” Aonzo looked up at him, just as other people in khaki uniforms took his place by the prints and the trees, looking about and exploring with metal tools he’d never seen before. There was the sound of static all around them, and someone yelled out for a ziplock bag.
“I can get you that. You know, this is quite an uncommon case. Bears, in England. We haven’t seen them here since the middle ages. Looks like some good has come out of the tragic death of Rebecca Wright.” Aonzo declared.
Asher nodded. “Please, get me that comparison as soon as possible Aonzo, I’d really appreciate it, I believe its important to the case.”
Aonzo nodded, “Give me an hour to work at this. My team and I will have some answers by then. An estimate atleast.”
An hour passed, seemingly like a day. The boatman that had driven him, Avery, and Liam across the lake got them all some coffee in plastic cups. “It’s hot.” He said, before sitting back down by the couch, watching a rerun of a talkshow while the three of them sat at the dining table.
Asher could feel Avery watching him, her eyes boring into the side of his head like she was preying on him. “What is it?” He asked her. She shook her head, going at her notepad in her lap again. Liam downed his coffee in one gulp.
He smacked his lips, before stroking off a drop of coffee that had spilt onto his page. He turned around to look back at the kitchen, far from the dining table. He was about to get up to get another cup when Avery stopped him. “You can have my cup. I haven’t touched it because I don’t like coffee.”
She pushed her steaming cup towards Liam who took no time in ending its contents.
“Thanks.” He said after.
“I’ve got some ideas.” He took out his tablet which had presumably been resting on his lap. Images of guns had opened up on it. “The gun from the pool was from the Iraq war, used by English soldiers. A personal handgun, most probably Rebecca’s husband’s who had worked in the army. She probably kept it with her for protection. It had a capacity of 9 bullets, but only 4 were fired.”
“What are you suggesting?” Asher asked, entwining his fingers with his elbows on the table as he placed his head onto the net of fingers he’d made.
Liam looked up at him, a largely undeterred expression on his face. “I suggest we try to find out where those bullets went?”
“Do you think they might still be in the trees?” Asher questioned.
“Unlikely, but possible. Rebecca fell from the side opposite to the one facing the trees. If there had been a bear, she would’ve fired at it and the bullets would’ve landed in the forest area. With how thick the bushes are, the bullets are probably still stuck there, unless some poor animal swallowed them. I’m assuming none of them hit target though, because the bear’s blood would be on the concrete then.”
Asher nodded, glancing at Avery who was still scrawling on her notepad, her eyebrows furrowed.
“Let’s do it.”
They spent the rest of the day with the animal control, in the forest. Searching for bullets, and extraordinarily, they found 3. Liam didn’t let him touch any of the bullets, until he’d photographed their locations.
Avery mostly stuck with the animal control, viewing their work with laser focus. “Hey.” Asher said, walking up to her. He didn’t like her much, with how hyper and then sometimes entirely silent she was. Like a brooding animal that woke up only in disastrous situations. “You good?” He asked, trying to display some concern, but he only sounded annoyed.
“Yep.” She said, walking away from him.
By evening, Liam had multiple pictures from different angles and heights, of the bullet. He’d taken one picture from a drone, and was now going over it with a red marker, to locate the bullet positions while sitting on the floor of the terrace with a cup of coffee next to his print. He held a compass in his left hand, and a small GPS sat next to his coffee.
“What now?” Avery asked, swinging back and forth as she walked from one end of the terrace to another, stopped only by the crates.
“Now, we wait for results. Liam, you pulling a nighter again?” Asher asked.
Liam had trouble getting off of his work. “Uhhhh, do you want me to?” He asked.
There was a knock on the terrace door right then, and Aonzo entered. “Sorry, but can I talk to Asher for a minute?”
“Slow down when you have to Liam, we’re quite on track here.” And if the bear’s size matched the fence door’s, they would’ve solved this case by the end of tomorrow.
Asher followed Aonzo out of the door, to the second floor where they stopped near the stairs leading down to the first floor. Aonzo’s worried face did not allow Asher to lift his hopes up.
“It doesn’t match, does it?” Asher asked.
Aonzo shook his head. “We haven’t even found any other proof of the bear, besides the footprints. And, deducing the size of the bear with those footprints, the creature would’ve been way too large to enter through the door anyway. We think the bear may have gone deeper into the forest though, so we’re going to investigate there for the coming days, and we’ve installed infrared cameras just in case we missed something. As far as i know, the bear could not have got in through the fence door or the windows.”
Then it couldn’t have got in at all, Asher’s heart sank. “Aah, alright Mr. Aonzo. Thank you for your help.”
“Hey, it was my pleasure. We really do hope there’s something out there, a chance for the grizzly population to naturally be revived in the wild.” Aonzo smiled.
Or, maybe some sick fool faked the bear prints, but Asher didn’t tell Aonzo that.
“Anyway, keep going at that case Asher, right? I think that’s your name.” Aonzo pat him on the back. “I’ll see you around, the team and I would like to begin searching the forest by tomorrow morning, but we need your permit to be on this piece of land, since this is your case.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll send in a signed permit to the police.” Asher brushed him off.
“Thanks. We’re calling it a day now. See you around.” Aonzo smiled before leaving down the stairs.
Asher nodded, faking a smile. He turned around, groaning in frustration as he looked up, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. Another trail lost.
He thought about the terrace and the bullets the gun had fired. He thought about how he’d searched for those bullets and found 2 of them, in the scorching heat while climbing up trees and wrestling their trunks, or bending over bushes. They had something, and even if it was just 3 damaged bullets that hadn’t landed their mark, and 1 missing bullet that may or may not have. It was still something, a graced clue. He wasn’t about to give up with the odds still somehow in his favor.
(Chapter 5: https://saragawde.com/chapter-5/)